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Shel Holtz
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CBC: “We don’t need no stinking publicists”

The Globe & Mail is reporting today that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has laid off 35 employees from its communications group—mostly publicists—as part of an effort to cut $1.7 million from the department’s annual budget.

The employees—based in Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver—were told their work would be shifted to outside PR agencies, although the CBC will hire five “promotions managers” who will serve as a liaison between the network and the outside agencies, working to draw more attention to radio and TV programming. One of the PR people losing his job after nearly 20 years with the CBC said, “They basically laid off every TV and radio network publicist, with the lion’s share of affected jobs in Toronto.”

A CBC spokesperson, Ruth-Ellen Soles, was quoted in the story saying the effort was designed to target audiences within their markets rather than have all publicity efforts managed out of Toronto. Publicists working in local markets such as Calgary, Edmonton, and Regina will keep their jobs. “We’re moving toward more of an agency model,” Soles said. Or a model that costs less.

One wonders how good a job the communications department leadership was doing in quantifying the value of its efforts—or if such measurement would have kept the budgetary axe from falling. In any event, some of the employees affected have already taken the matter to the Canadian Media Guild.

04/12/05 | 1 Comment | CBC: “We don’t need no stinking publicists”

Comments

  • 1.There are probably many, many sides to this story including the outgoing publicists were likely very underutilized, with lots of non-productive gaps in their schedules. But chances are good union rules kept them from jumping to other tasks during the quiet times. They couldn't have worked harder if they wanted to.

    And the outgoing publicistys were probably medium well paid; yet I can't imagine an agency undercutting the CBC pay scales and getting anyone experienced to do the job. By the time agencies add markups to their staff time and give themselves some profits, agencies are going to cost the CBC a lot more, for the same number of hours. But I think the number of hours devoted to each program will drop a lot. That slack time, when the publicists were being paid, will disappear.

    Once upon a time I came very close to running public relations for the English language television operations of the CBC. I'm still not sure whether I whould be disappointed or reelived I did not get the job. It's a weird place -- part government agency, part normal broadcaster, part ideology-driven public service like I imagine PBS and NPR to be in the USA.

    New CBC model: fewer people, working fewer hours, doing pretty much the same jobs as the staffers did, except without deep background and with lots of job turnover and overall, not accomplishing as much. And don't believe the cost savings will ever be proven.

    Brian Kilgore | April 2005 | Toronto

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